From Reuters: In February 2008, Thomas Minder, a Swiss
businessman whose family-owned company is best known for its old-fashioned
herbal toothpaste, attacked his banker, UBS Chairman Marcel Ospel, as if he
were a form of stubborn plaque. At a shareholders' meeting in Basel , he stormed the podium as Ospel
addressed the crowd. Ospel's bodyguards grappled with Minder and wrestled him
away before he could land his symbolic blow — he was trying to hand the
embattled head of Switzerland 's
largest bank a bound copy of Swiss company law, which codifies corporate
temperance.
The bodyguards marched Minder out of the hall amid a chorus
of boos and jeers. Two months later, Ospel was gone, taking the fall for UBS's
recklessness, but Minder's campaign against big bonuses had only just begun;
shortly after Ospel was ousted, Minder filed the 100,000 signatures needed to
launch a referendum to impose some of the tightest controls on executive
compensation in the world….
Minder is the epitome of the Swiss entrepreneurs whose small
businesses are the backbone of the country's economy. They chide big banks and
other homegrown multinationals — like Roche, Novartis, Nestle and ABB — for
adopting an American-style get-rich-quick corporate culture. That, in their
view, contrasts with a Swiss business ethos that favors sustainability and
long-term relationships, one that has helped build a reputation for
high-quality products like watches and other precision instruments…...
Read all about it at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/21/us-reutersmagazine-davos-swiss-rich-idUSBRE90K0F420130121
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